Two-metre-long water scorpion walked on the beach

YOU wouldn't want to trip over this monster on a night out. Measuring up to 2 metres long, the eurypterid water scorpion is the largest arthropod that ever lived. Fortunately for us, it died out 330 million years ago.

Now geologist Martin Whyte of the University of Sheffield, UK, has found a fossilised track left by a 1.6-metre-long eurypterid as it lumbered across a Carboniferous beach in Scotland. The discovery ends a debate about whether they ever ventured onto land (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/438576a).

The track, which is 6 metres long, consists of footprints made by the animal's four pairs of legs, and drag marks left by its tail, which suggest the beast was on land. Although monstrously large, the animal, identified as a Hibbertopterus species, was unlikely to have been terrorising its neighbours. The footprints are larger than the stride length, indicating that it was moving extremely slowly.

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